Whiplash – A bit of background on the nature of a whiplash injury: ligaments are the tissues in the human body that hold your bones together. Wherever two or more bones are held together, they form a joint and those joints are locked by a set of connective tissues called ligaments. The bones that make up your ankle, knees, ribs, wrist, shoulders and spine are all held together and perfectly aligned by their ligaments.
Spinal ligaments perform two very important functions in your spine:
(a) they completely hold the vertebra (spinal bones) in alignment during an activity. This allows your spine to function perfectly without injury, pain or discomfort.
(b) they also are responsible for coordinating all the muscle activity around the spine that keeps the spine stable. This is an incredibly important function that if maintained can keep you out of pain.
It is now known that these ligaments contains very advanced pressure receptors called mechanical receptors (or mechanoreceptors). These imbedded mechanoreceptors convert pressure from the ligaments into an electrical signal that triggers the body to make instantaneous muscle adjustments. In essence, these mechanoreceptors tell the muscles exactly what is needed at any instance, at any level for any activity. As long as they are not damaged or loose connection between brain and body, they perform flawlessly!
However, some of these mechanical receptors are designed to cause pain: significant, dull, sharp, aching pain when the ligament has been damaged. This is to continually protect the joint by warning you that what you are doing or about to do is irritating the damaged joint, which could cause the joint to be further damaged if you persist with the activity.
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